


How They Met

by PGT



Category: RWBY
Genre: Atlesian!Roman, Fluff, How They Met, Neo is 5, Pastfic, Roman's a teen, mute!Neo, they're poor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 07:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8277017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PGT/pseuds/PGT
Summary: Roman's too nice for his own good sometimes, but his kindness lead him to the only person he ever truly cared for.Fic about how Roman met Neo, purely headcanon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Totally gonna continue this lmao I'm having too much fun not to

Roman couldn’t have been older than 16 when he met Neo. He’d scrounged up enough money to afford himself a treat, and nothing was better than ice cream on a warm day in Atlas. Proud of the four lien he held in a clenched fist, he shoved open the parlor door, entering the three person line. The first person ordered, Roman didn’t pay attention to what they requested. He knew what he wanted; pumpkin cheesecake.  
The second person in line was a young girl. She couldn’t have been older than five. She pointed with dirty fingers to a tub and the woman behind the counter scooped a dense ball of pink and brown icecream into a bowl. She requested four lien, to which the girl shrugged.  
The worker sighed, “You can’t keep wasting my time, kid. Get out of here.”  
She stomped a shoeless foot and turned to the other patrons. Roman made a mistake that day.  
Never make eye contact with a distressed child unless you plan on delivering relief.  
She pointed to the man frantically, even moving to grab his ratty green coat with sticky hands. He dodged out of her way, and would have shouted if he hadn’t heard an old female patron’s mutterings.  
“filthy beggars, look at him, can’t even care for his own daughter!”  
The girl wasn’t his daughter. He was sixteen, a virgin, and had no interest in women. He’d never met this girl. But the old bitch would never believe him, he recognized her as the hag he snatched his boots from.  
Bitch.  
The girl grabbed his coat while he was distracted, tugging in it, tears and snot spilling onto her face.  
A single crackling word flew out of him, “F-fine!”  
He panicked. Crying children do that to nice people. He threw his fistful of lien onto the counter and grabbed the dessert, a growl in his throat and blood in his cheeks.  
Even for a thief, the speed at which he escaped the situation was impressive. The little girl was a bur on his coat and didn’t detach until he stopped walking. He was home, he realized. The stupid park bench he’d been sleeping on for the past four months.  
Roman was panting, the girl was sniffling and the icecream had melted, but his face had cooled off, and he didn’t feel like kicking the little girl anymore, despite how she’d dirtied his coat.  
He sat the bowl of sugary soup on the bench, twisted to pick up the girl, and lifted her onto the bench, still needing to lean to meet her eyes.  
“You owe me four lien, punk.”  
She pouted, and blinked several times. Each time her eyes changed colors, both pink, then one grey, one pink, then one pink, one brown, and so on. It distracted Roman, and he blinked a few times to register what he saw.  
Five year olds are impatient. While he stared at her eyes in confusion she squatted, taking the bowl of melted ice cream and pressing split, puffy lips to the side as she tilted it up.  
Roman stirred at that, “Hey—I paid for that, kid,” He pulled it from her hands, scowling at the prints they left on the Styrofoam. “You can’t go stealing—er… I’m not the best person to teach you that lesson.”  
He spun the bowl to a clean edge and drank some of the soup himself. Not a bad choice, sugary and uncreative, but he didn’t expect much else from a kid’s tastes.  
“What flavor is this?’  
She didn’t respond.  
“Can’t talk?”  
She nodded.  
They sat in silence before her eyes widened with a thought. She hopped from the bench and onto the cobbled ground, running to a pile of leaves and taking an armful back to the bench. She dumped them and started moving them into letters, N, E running out partway through an O.  
“Neo? Never heard of it.”  
She shook her head and stomped her foot.  
“What, is that not what it’s called?”  
Nod.  
“What is it, your name? That’s not what we were talking about, kiddo.”  
In hindsight, it was a terrible misconception, and it’s particularly embarrassing that he never connected the iconic flavor to the name he provided her.  
But, she didn’t know her true name, and couldn’t find a way to refute the man. It sounded cute, too, so she nodded.


End file.
